Tortorella pre-game

First, let me say that the renovation of MSG has really begun now. You’ll see it when you walk in. The foodcourt on the sixth floor directly behind the visitors bench is completely walled off. There’s stuff happening everywhere. Going to be very interesting to watch how they do this and conduct business at the same time.

And on more important topics, Martin Biron is in goal tonight against the Flys, and the lineup remains the same, the lines the way they finished last night’s game after all that juggling.

Back with Tortorella quotes in a few.

John Tortorella:

On when the decision to start Biron was made:

“I don’t get too far ahead with the goaltending. He’s played well for us. He’ll go tonight.”

“Newbury will stay in, the lines will stay as they ended last night. Don’t even ask me what they are, because I’ll need my piece of paper to figure it out. But they’ll start the way they ended. “We just felt we needed to do that (all the juggling in Montreal). Probably should have done it earlier. But we ended up creating some offense, so we’ll see how it goes. Dru is playing with Step and Zucc; Zucc is the left winger.

“I thought Sean played well, and Sean has played well with (Prust and Boyle). So, again, I like the line. I may use it in certain situations tonight. But Sean’s played well with those two.”

On the power play:

“Not a lack of confidence. I think it’s a lack of getting the puck. We’ll try some different groups tonight. Again, we had, I thought it was an important part of the game — Gabby makes a great play to Staal. He could have thrown it in the net, but it didn’t happen. But we made a couple of plays, but it’s certainly not good enough, so we’ll try some new groups tonight. It could be two or three groups as we go through.”

Gilroy will remain on one of the points:

“Yup. He’s done a pretty good job as far as movement. We do a lot of, we try to slide to use the width of the ice, and he’s done a pretty good job with it.”

On the temptation to stick with Lundqvist after those two performances:

“None. None. None. Marty Biron has played very well for us, and as I said from Day 1 this year, we’re not going to keep on throwing Hank in there, win, lose, whatever … we need to stay with what we want to do here, so if we have an opportunity, at the end of the year, Hank will be fresh.”

Consider doing it the other way around:

“No.”

On Lundqvist’s little scrap in Montreal:

“I think you’ve got to be careful. I mean, in that situation there, where our team was, I thought it was great. I wish he hit him with more shots. But it can’t be … situations arise when you need to stand up for yourself and spark the team and that was one. It can’t be every time he gets hit, as Dubi. Dubi loses his composure a little bit there. Although he didn’t do much, you still need to think about what’s going on with the team, and at that point in time, where our team was at the end of the period, it was the right time to do it. I think Hank seized the moment there. There are certain other times that might arise, and maybe he should.”

On Dubinsky’s penalty:

“I still think (he lost his composure) because he didn’t play that well. I think he got too wrapped up in that. All the surrounding stuff around, how do you pronounce it, Subban? … and Dubi, and he draws one. You have to understand the referees in our league. He does a great job in drawing one off of Subban, so no matter what, the refs are going to look. There was really nothing done. Subban dives. He just falls down. But he can’t put himself in that spot, that’s all I’m saying. I don’t think he was just half-cocked out of his mind and he did something. But he can’t put himself in that situation, just because of the surrounding circumstance. The game did change. We actually played a good eight minutes (until) whenever that penalty was, and they scored a power-play goal and the momentum changed right there and we just weren’t good enough to seize it back.”

Dubinsky hasn’t done that too much:

“No. He has matured. Watch him tonight. I think he’s probably going to play one of his best games tonight. And I’ve been one of the hardest ones on him as I’ve gotten to know him as far as coaching, as far as losing sight of where he is. But he’s matured and we have to give him credit. I think that will happen. I think he’ll learn and he’ll be better for it. He’ll be better for it. He’ll play well tonight. He’ll be a big part of our team tonight.”

On the two losses to the Flyers:

“Well, they’re a good team. They’re a good team. They’re where they’re at because they’re a good club, well-coached and I think we helped them in the last game with our turnovers. We know what they’re going to do in the neutral zone with their forechecking. Their team is structured. Peter coaches them; he has them under structure. So you can see it on the tape. We know exactly what we’re going to face. We can’t be putting picks into the middle of the ice and turning things over, especially against an offense like that. It’s pretty, right on through their lines, they’re pretty solid. So we have to be careful there. I think that hurt us a little bit the last time we played them.”

Rick Carpiniello, 26, was born and raised in Harrison and began working in The Journal News' sports department (back when it was The Reporter Dispatch and eight other newspapers) in October of 1977 after a year of covering high school sports as a stringer. In 1978 he began covering the New York Rangers and the National Hockey League. Carpiniello has been writing columns on everything from local sports to the big leagues since 2002.